Ad Tech Industry Vets Raise $3.75 Million to Launch Gradient X, a New DSP for Mobile Advertising

SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gradient X, a company started by former executives of Adconion, the Rubicon Project and OpenX, has raised a $3.75 million seed financing round with participation from Rincon Venture Partners, GRP Partners, Crosscut Ventures, Walter Kortschak, Jim Willenborg, Clark Landry, Founder Collective, Double M Capital, Siemer Ventures and Baroda Ventures.

“Performance marketers’ needs are much different in mobile from marketing to users on their desktops. To be successful in mobile, innovation specific to the marketing funnel, as well as targeting and optimization, is required. Our mission is to be leaders of mobile marketing innovation.”

The company is led by Brian Baumgart-CEO (Chief Strategy Officer at Adconion Direct), Julie Mattern-CIO (Co-founder and Chief Technologist at the Rubicon Project) and Michael Lum-CTO (Head of Engineering at OpenX), and will use the funds to expand its engineering team.

“One needs to look no further than the first 25 slides of Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends report from the recent D:10 conference to understand the world is quickly going the way of mobile, and that the opportunities surrounding this paradigm shift are enormous,” said CEO/Founder Brian Baumgart. “However, there is currently a dramatic gap between mobile growth and mobile monetization. To date, the mobile channel has not been easy to navigate for performance marketers looking to drive sales, leads, subscriptions and new customer acquisition. The focus of Gradient X is to help close the delta between revenue and time spent by providing technology, tools and services to unlock the direct response potential of mobile.”

Added Fred Krueger, Chairman of Gradient X, and founding investor of Adconion, “Performance marketers’ needs are much different in mobile from marketing to users on their desktops. To be successful in mobile, innovation specific to the marketing funnel, as well as targeting and optimization, is required. Our mission is to be leaders of mobile marketing innovation.”

About Gradient X:

Gradient X is a Demand Side Platform that will unlock the performance advertising potential of mobile media. Our customer focus is large-scale direct response advertisers and performance based aggregators. We are partnering with premium app publishers and the leading exchanges and supply side platforms.